Miami

Health Care

Miami is the home of the nation's second-largest public hospital, the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center, which forms the core of a major medical complex located near the city's downtown. The complex also houses the highly respected Bascom-Palmer Eye Institute and the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Miami-Dade County has a total of 28 hospitals and 33,000 licensed health-care personnel, the most of any region in Florida. Hospital facilities were reported to have had a combined revenue of $120 million in 1997 and to have treated some 15,000 patients from Florida and around the world.

In addition to direct patient services, the Miami area is home to a substantial biomedical industry that produces pharmaceuticals and medical devices and conducts important research and development projects, such as those that led to the development of ultrasonic diagnostic equipment and artificial kidneys. Biomedical companies located in the region include Cordis/Johnson & Johnson, Beckman-Coulter, and Kos Pharmaceuticals. In 1998 the Miami-Dade County commissioners set aside an 11.7-square-kilometer (four-and-a-half-square-mile) area for the development of a proposed biomedical corridor to further enhance the presence of this sector in the region.